Beyond The Reset
You don’t have to work at a fancy resort to hear this. Just ask the next gainfully employed, overworked (is that redundant these days?) person you meet what they wish for.
What do we all want to escape and reset from?
Usually some combination of chronic overwhelm and stress. An out of whack work/life balance. Strained relationships. An erosion of meaning and purpose and agency. A vague but persistent sense that we are just enduring rather than enjoying our work and our lives. Surviving rather than thriving.
In other words, we are either already burned out or circling that drain. The statistics show this clearly. For example, nearly three-quarters of U.S. employees now report moderate to very high stress at work, and two-thirds say they feel burned out multiple times each week.
Of course resorts, vacations, even just a few days off can be lovely, and a great time to get some perspective on our lives and earnestly resolve to make the changes we want and need to make.
Then it’s back to the grindstone.
Before we know it, despite our best intentions, it’s as if we never left, and we are fantasizing about the next escape. Indeed, Stephanie was also not unusual in that she was on her third “reset” at the resort that year, and it was only July.
So we normalize it. “This is just the real world,” we tell ourselves. “It’s so much worse for so many others, I can’t and shouldn’t complain.” We convince ourselves that surely things will get better once we clear that next hurdle or two–finish this project, win that promotion, get the kids through school.
Ironically, it can be strangely comforting to convince ourselves that things aren’t that bad, and that there’s really nothing we can do about it anyway, because then we’re off the hook. All that perpetual stress and busyness also provide an acceptable and even admirable excuse to avoid examining and addressing our most important issues and continue suppressing our dreams.
That’s more or less where I was at in the latter part of my career. Then several of my colleagues died unexpectedly. Some were still unhappily working, keeping their heads down until the promised land of retirement. Others died shortly after retiring, taking their unrealized dreams with them. Then both of my parents died within a few months of each other.
All these deaths forced me to confront what we normally ignore and deny: life is short, and none of us know when our time will be up. So I told myself the time to try to be my best self and live my best life was now. No more waiting for some mythical future. No more excuses.
Among other things, I worked with a seasoned life coach. He began by guiding me through the process of taking a brutally honest look in the mirror. He helped me see things I had previously been unable or unwilling to see. One of these things was, as he put it, I had “an overutilized brain and an underutilized and malnourished heart.”
What I learned from that mirror, along with years of subsequent research, training, and working with others, can be distilled into one simple equation:
Clarity + Action = Transformation
That is, gaining true clarity about things like who we are and aspire to be, and what we want, reveals the necessary action we need to achieve our desired transformation.
As my favorite meditation teacher likes to say, it’s simple. But it’s not easy.
It’s not easy for two related reasons. First, many of us convince ourselves that we can do this on our own (I sure did!). Why do we need someone else? Because we are too close to ourselves. We live inside our own stories, myths, limiting beliefs, and rationalizations, like a fish swims through water. We are highly skilled and clever at deluding ourselves. We do not always act in our own best interests. We are not always trustworthy and reliable.
Second, this work can be quite uncomfortable, and downright painful. We tend to be very good at avoiding uncomfortable, painful things. There are always plenty of good reasons to procrastinate, or pause if we do manage to get started. Thus most of us also need someone else to hold us accountable and call us on our own bullshit.
Maybe you see yourself as the exception. Because you are a smart, educated, successful, insightful, resourceful, highly disciplined and motivated person, you can do this on your own.
If this is you, ask yourself “am I happy and fulfilled right now?” Or, have you settled for something like an 8/10 life and bought into the “it's way worse for others” cop out. If your honest answer is yes, please accept my sincere congratulations.
If the answer is no, but I’m going to get there on my own, write down exactly what you will do and accomplish by when. When that date comes, if you have done what you said you would do, and are satisfied with your results, again, congratulations!
For everyone else, rather than chasing after another reset, perhaps it’s time to consider reaching out to someone who knows what they are doing and has no vested interest in what you do, yet is invested in your success.
My bet is that this will wind up being among the most difficult and worthwhile things you will ever do.
